


Catastrophizing

by MicrosuedeMouse



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety, Comfort, F/M, Max and QM are also there a little, Oneshot, Panic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 05:52:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11457315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MicrosuedeMouse/pseuds/MicrosuedeMouse
Summary: Max took off after dark, and David and Quartermaster are out looking for him. Gwen is left alone to take care of the rest of the camp. And she absolutely can't stand the waiting.





	Catastrophizing

**Author's Note:**

> hey hi fuck I didn't expect to fall down this rabbit hole but here I am I guess
> 
> this show is trash and so am I
> 
> okay so anyway I started a different (longer) Gwenvid oneshot but then I,,, stopped in the middle to write this instead? uh so you can expect more from me in like... a few days, idk, I have Librarians fic I've been neglecting so I'm trying to prioritize here
> 
> like all writers I subsist off of feedback, so please drop me a line if you enjoyed this! seriously comments make my day
> 
> cool okay cheers enjoy

Gwen paced back and forth across the small office that was the front room of the counselors’ cabin, her stomach turning. She was probably wearing a track in the old wooden floorboards, but she couldn’t care less just that moment. She risked another look at the time on her phone – it had only been eight minutes since she last looked, but it was well past one in the morning, and she was just about ready to throw up.

If Max was alive, she was going to kill him.

He had waited until just after David and Gwen turned in for the night to sneak out of his tent. He’d sworn Neil and Nikki to secrecy, but they showed up at the cabin door a half hour later, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “He said it was because we always got caught when it was all three of us,” Nikki had explained. “Three was too many, it made us too obvious. He said he’d send us word when he got out so we could escape too.”

“…But isn’t it kind of dangerous out there at night?” Neil had finally asked in a small voice.

David was already taking a flashlight and his emergency backpack out from under the desk by then. “I’ll go wake Quartermaster,” he told Gwen. “You stay with the kids.”

“Wait, shouldn’t I go with you?” she’d blurted. “I can’t just sit here and wait for you to come back!”

He’d put a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head. “Someone needs to stay here, and QM and I know these woods far better than you do,” he pointed out, surprisingly level-headed. “You look after the rest of the campers. Get Neil and Nikki settled back into bed. We’ll be back before you know it.”

Gwen had managed to keep herself together in front of the kids. She’d let Neil and Nikki have a late-night comfort snack, then led them back to their tent and told them to get some rest. “I know you’re anxious, but QM and David both know this whole area like the backs of their hands. And hooks,” she assured them. “You can come back to the cabin if you have to, but try to get some sleep. Max will be back by the time you wake up. I promise.”

Then she had gone back to her cabin and begun her slow descent into panic.

She had texted David a few times to check in, but he hadn’t responded. The reception was shit once you got out into the trees, she knew that. At least he had radios to stay in touch with the Quartermaster while they covered ground in opposite directions; that was some comfort. QM was scary, but she trusted him when it came down to it, and if anything happened to David he’d be taken care of.

She had tried to sit and read. Tried to watch midnight TV. Tried to eat something. But she was too antsy to stay still or keep anything down. So she paced around the cabin, trying desperately not to have a full-blown attack. She wanted to be out there _with_ David, because then at least she’d be _moving_ , be _helping_ , but she had to stay put.

She had tried, for a while, to deny why she was so worked up. “Losing a camper definitely means losing your fucking job,” she had muttered to herself in a high voice, sitting in her armchair with her knees bouncing furiously. But she could only pull that off for so long. The fact was, her heart was not stone. She was pretty sure QM was immortal, but Max was out there by himself, just an angry ten-year-old who had a little too much in common with her, she often felt, and as independent as he could be he wasn’t prepared for this, and goddamnit, she really did _care_ about the little bastard. And David – god, she knew he was capable when he had to be and he could probably navigate these woods without a flashlight on a new moon, but he was also a little hapless and a little prone to injury and she wasn’t there to look after him. She always grumbled that it wasn’t her job to be his nurse, but she’d gotten a bit used to it, really. And in spite of all of her rational thinking skills working as hard as they could, she was catastrophizing now.

What if one of them got hurt?

What if Max got hurt, and she had never reached out to him and tried to save him from becoming as tired and jaded as she was?

What if _David_ got hurt, and the only stupid ray of sunshine she had left in her life disappeared?

What if somebody _died?_ Not likely, sure, but that nasty little voice in the back of her head reminded her that it wouldn’t be the first time it had happened at Camp Campbell.

She’d never forgive herself.

Frustrated tears running down her face, she yanked out her ponytail and began to run her hands through her hair, digging her fingers into her scalp, trying to bring herself back down from the panic. Sometimes the sensation grounded her. She was hyperventilating, she could tell, and she struggled to get her breathing back under control.

It was past two, over four hours after David and Quartermaster had left, when Gwen thought she saw the glint of flashlights through the window. She was outside in a heartbeat, running into the middle of the camp, watching the lights draw closer through the trees. She heard David’s voice before she could make him out, a steady stream of firm admonishments. A moment later he came into view, one hand clamped around Max’s arm, Quartermaster holding the other one just as tightly.

“You fucking _mongrel!_ ” she shouted, pointing accusingly at Max as she charged forward to meet them. “Don’t you _ever_ do that again! You nearly fucking killed me, you little asshole!”

“What the fuck, Gwen?” Max responded, quick to hide his shock behind a mask of derision. “Since when do you give a shit about me?”

Exhausted and frustrated and completely strung out, she couldn’t respond except with an angry roar, biting down on the side of her hand in a possibly-belated attempt not to wake any of the other campers.

David looked at her for a moment, eyebrows raised, and then glanced down at Max. “You should get some sleep,” he told the boy slowly. “We’re going to talk more tomorrow, though. In the meantime, the Quartermaster here is going to take you back to your tent and keep an eye on you overnight.”

QM grunted something in agreement, and the counselors watched as he hauled Max back to his tent, pushed him inside, and then parked on a folding chair nearby. “I offered him the day off to sleep tomorrow if he’d keep an eye on Max’s tent for the rest of the night,” David said, turning to Gwen. He watched her for a second or two, then reached out gently to take her shoulder. “You’re shaking. Are you okay?”

Somehow, just being asked that question seemed to open the floodgates, and she looked down as the tears she’d been leaking periodically for the last hour and a half began to gush forth in ugly sobs. It was embarrassing, but she couldn’t stop it now.

“Oh – oh dear,” David said quietly. He moved closer, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, and began to steer her back towards their cabin. She let him walk her there, too tired and too spent to shrug him off. He led her inside, through the office, into the little bedroom they shared in the back. Pushing the privacy curtain that divided their sides of the room out of the way, he sat them both down on the edge of his bed, far tidier than hers.

She couldn’t stop crying, and to her surprise, he was patient. He rubbed one hand in circles against her back as she kicked off her boots and pulled her feet up onto the bed, wrapping her arms around her legs and dropping her face into her knees. “Just get it all out of your system,” he said softly.

He was trading the gentle circles for a light back scratch, his fingernails tracing down the humped curve of her spine and then back up, when she finally started to catch her breath again. Taking a few moments to breathe deep and compose herself, she briefly gave audience to the back part of her brain that wondered at how well he was dealing with this. They’d worked together long enough for him to be quite aware that she was prone to bouts of anxiety and panic, but he’d never actually had to face anything this extreme from her before.

“Hey, are you gonna be all right?” he asked as she lifted her head again.

She nodded a little, drawing another long, shaky breath. “I was just… really worried,” she said hoarsely, barely audible.

“About Max?” he asked.

Gwen nodded again. “And you.”

“Me?” he asked, his surprise genuine. “I’m fine. Scraped my knee when I tripped over a tree root, but no worse for wear besides that. Come on, Gwen, you know how well I know the area.”

“I know, I know, you have a name for every single godforsaken tree,” she groaned. “But that doesn’t stop me from being _scared_. I can’t help it. I come up with a thousand different scenarios for horrible things that might happen and I have no way of knowing they aren’t true until whoever I’m worrying about comes back.”

“I’m so sorry,” David said. He was still scratching her back, running his fingertips slowly up and down her slouched spine. She wasn’t sure if anyone had ever done that for her before, under these circumstances, but it was comforting. “I had no idea it was that bad for you.” He glanced down at the radio on his belt. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll go into town this weekend and pick up a third radio that can tune to these ones. I’m sure there must be a few dollars to squeeze out of the budget. That way if anything like this ever happened again – even though we’re going to take measures so that it _won’t_ – we would be able to keep in touch better, even when cell phones fail us.”

She nodded dumbly, staring into space in the direction of her own bed across the room.

“I got your texts, by the way. Just before we hit the edge of the campground. I was going to reply, but then I saw you come outside. I’m sorry I worried you so much.”

“I just…” She pulled a hand back through her hair again, still seeking comfort. “I was just really scared of something happening to you. There’s only one David in my life, and I have no idea where I’d find another one.” She managed to find enough of her sense of dignity to roll her eyes. “You’re a bit unique.”

“Aw, Gwen,” he said, apparently ignoring her sarcasm. His hand left her back, and she missed it for a fraction of a second before she felt it again on top of the one she’d let fall to the mattress between them.

“Don’t – don’t read into it,” she stammered, cursing herself for the way her voice caught in the middle when he gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. She was staring a hole into the t-shirt she’d left on the floor the previous night, unable to meet his eye.

“I’m very sorry,” David said again. “I didn’t realize you cared that much, Gwen.”

“Of course I care, asshat,” she croaked. She was probably already red in the face from the crying, but now she had a feeling it was getting worse. Irritated, she ducked her head down against her knees again, hiding her face.

There was a short, quiet pause before he squeezed her fingers again. Then he leaned over close and planted a quick kiss lightly on top of her head. She tensed up, wondering if that was what it felt like, or could she have somehow misinterpreted? After all, she could barely feel anything through that thick mat of hair. “Well, I care about you, too,” David said softly. She felt his weight shift, and then he got up off the bed.

Gwen lifted her head slowly, watching him for a second or two as he kicked off his shoes, removed his watch and his bandana and placed them on top of his dresser. “I’m gonna have a quick shower before I go to bed,” he told her.

“How am I supposed to take that?” she blurted.

“That I don’t like to sleep all sweaty and dirty, I guess?” he suggested, shrugging, as he pulled his towel off the hooks behind the door.

“No, I – the – the thing you just did,” she clarified, her face burning. He was gonna do something like that and then just carry on with his night as if everything was normal? What kind of bullshit?

Finally he glanced over at her, smiling. It was a normal David smile, just sweet and friendly and warm and absolutely nothing hiding behind it. He was one of the few people she didn’t automatically distrust when he smiled. “However you want to take it,” he told her simply.

She watched him again as he scooped his pyjamas up from where they were hung over the footboard of his bed and disappeared into the tiny bathroom at the back of the cabin. Her arms were still around her knees and she was still sitting on the edge of his bed, trying to process.

However she wanted to take it? The hell was that supposed to mean?

She’d known this dumbass for years now and somehow she still couldn’t get her brain around him sometimes.

She stewed around in her stupid feelings for a few minutes, a deep frown on her face, listening to the squeal of shitty plumbing on the other side of the wall. She felt like he’d left her with a decision to make, but by god, she did not want to make it. She had been so comfortable, firmly entrenched in her denial. Why would she want to leave that safe, cozy little hole she’d buried herself in?

There was a _thunk_ as he turned off the shower, and she almost began to panic again.

A moment later, the bathroom door opened, and David emerged in his pyjamas, towel hanging around his neck. He tossed his dirty clothes into the laundry hamper they shared in that tiny space, and then picked up the towel and began to rub it through his hair. He glanced at her, and there was that smile again, so utterly genuine – what business did any human have, being that sincere? But when he met her eyes, something dropped into place somewhere deep in her stomach, and she made her decision, for better or worse.

Gwen stood up, grabbed him by the front of his pyjama shirt, yanked him forward, and kissed him.

He didn’t pull away, which was a good first sign. Some distant part of her was dimly aware of the motion as he settled the towel around his neck again and then reached up, and her skin tingled when his right hand cupped against her neck and jawline. He was kissing her back.

“There she is,” he said softly when they separated.

Her eyes snapped open. “What? Who?” she asked, still frowning.

“The Gwen I’m more used to,” he told her, smiling yet again, and god, were those fucking butterflies in her stomach? What was she, fifteen? Christ’s sake. “Does this mean you’re feeling better?”

“Maybe,” she grouched, looking down. She couldn’t deal with that look on his face. His thumb traced over her cheekbone, and she refused to think about the sensations it created. “Was that how I was supposed to take it?” she asked after a moment, very quietly.

“If you wanted to,” he said, echoing the sentiment that had so infuriated her ten minutes ago.

There was another long pause while she thought. “Did you really not know I cared?”

“I knew you cared,” he assured her. “I just wasn’t sure how much. You can be hard to read, Gwen.”

“Well,” she said slowly, “maybe I care enough for kissing.”

“Maybe?” he asked, and she glanced up and saw that bit of a grin and realized he was _teasing_.

“Oh, fuck you,” she growled. She was having enough trouble with this as it was.

“I feel like it’s a little early on for that, don’t you?” His grin grew a little more.

“Oh my _god_ ,” she groaned, but she couldn’t help cracking the tiniest smile. God, she must look like such a mess by now, red-faced and puffy-eyed and exhausted and now _smiling_. “If I kiss you again, will you shut _up?_ ”

“Maybe!” he said cheerfully.

Both hands balled in his t-shirt, she hauled him back in, kissing him hard. His free hand found her neck as he responded, still smiling a little bit against her.

Right now, this was good. She’d figure the rest out in the morning.


End file.
